Letter: Wind energy in Boone County

As a generational landowner and participating resident of the North Boone Wind Farm, we find it necessary to express our opinion, as well as the opinion of many other participating and non-participating residents, on the hotly debated topic of wind energy in Boone County.

As a generational landowner and participating resident of the North Boone Wind Farm, we find it necessary to express our opinion, as well as the opinion of many other participating and non-participating residents, on the hotly debated topic of wind energy in Boone County. As some of you may be aware, the Boone County Board will be having a vote on whether to ban the current or future development of wind energy in Boone County. Many of our families have lived in Boone County for over hundred years. We grew up here, we raised our kids here and we anticipate watching our grandchildren grow up here. We are concerned citizens of Boone County as well. We are concerned about our schools, our unemployment rate, our poverty rate and our agricultural roots being eroded by subdivisions. As a generational landowner, we find more value in our land as agricultural. The value of our property includes the community which contains it. We depend on the services and infrastructure that our community provides us, including roads and emergency services. All of which are funded by our dwindling tax base. Wind energy has brought significant economic benefits to Illinois counties across the state, benefits that Boone County could desperately use: increased tax revenue, agricultural preservation, jobs and, don't forget, a cleaner, more sustainable form of energy. It is true that more details need to be flushed out on the current project being proposed in Boone County; however, it would be reckless and irresponsible of our elected Boone County officials for a wind energy project to be denied, or any economic opportunity in Boone County for that matter, to be denied before it has ever had the chance to formally present itself to the County and the public through the Special Use Application process. As a generational landowner, we are concerned about preservation, while seeing houses where there used to be fields. How we respond as a community will have lasting impacts for generations to come. While some of you may share generational roots in Boone County, not all share our current opinion on wind energy. To those of you, we say let's set a good example for our new friends and neighbors from the city and show them how we resolve our differences in Boone County. — Steve Grenlund, Capron